1903 A4 input

[chill45100]

I have been considering a CMP 1903 A4. Use will be mostly for fun shooting with the option of a vintage sniper match. Question for the forum, does anyone have experience with this rifle? Any input is welcome.
Thank you in advance.
Chill45100

[Old School Big Bore]

I've been around all the Army SNSs - my first school used the M1D - and I was privileged to help a museum armorer 'warm up' several 03A4s once...shot up my whole quarterly allotment of M72 that day. A lot depends on the quality/remaining clarity of the scope. Small diameter scopes are difficult & frustrating to start with; a little cloudiness goes a long way toward rendering one nearly unuseable. If you could find 1" or 30mm rings to mate up to the base, those rifles would be battleworthy today.

[Scharfschuetze]

The 1903A4 will do what most 1903A3s will do accuracy wise. Not much more and not much less. I don't think that they were accurized the way modern sniper rifles are. A real 1903A4 will have the nomenclature of the rifle (U.S. Remington 03-A3 [yes, that's 03-A3]) will be on the left side of the receiver ring instead of on top as is de rigeuer for rack grade Springfields. We had several 1903A4s and M21s in the support company's arms room and used them for familiarization during our annual sniper train up using our M24 SWSs. Lots of fun and a real connection to history. About half of ours had the "scant" stock and the rest had the pistol grip "C" stock.

The key to their accuracy is the scope as Old School mentions. I've shot them with the original Weaver 330 (M73 3/4"), the Lyman Alaskan (Mk 82 7/8") and the Mk 84 scope (3/4"). All of these are less than 1" in diameter and the old ones used pine sap as I recall to cement the compound lenses together. Given that, you often see the lenses get bubbles in them or in some stage of delaminating. The less than 3 power of the scopes and the usual post reticle give a fast sight picture that is easy to use, but holdover gets a bit dicey at extended ranges. The Mk 84 has reasonable deflection and elevation turrets, the Mk 82 was really a civilian Lyman Alaskan with the civilian style adjustments and the oldest (circa WWII) Weaver 330 has a friction hold on the very small turrets located back towards the ocular lens.

All the 1903A4s that I've fired had a parkerized Redfield Jr. one piece scope base with either 3/4" or 7/8" rings depending on the scope.

[DaveInFloweryBranchGA]

I've read, but can't confirm, there's some outfit that does a really good job refurbishing those old WWII scopes. I've also heard another outfit has some pretty good "reproduction" scopes for sale at reasonable prices. Use your google fu and do a search for "reproduction 1903A4 sniper scopes" and "1903A4 sniper scope refurbishing service." Should net you more information.

The nice thing about a 1903A3/A4 is even though accuracy is the same, it's pretty darn good, with just about any of the WWII manufactured barrels out there. My Dad used one of the Marine built 1903 sniper rifles with the Unertl scope (His description was quite interesting when he told scout/sniper tales of hunting japs.) and a 1903A4 with what he described as a "small, lower power scope for shorter ranges."

When he and his fellow scout Burgen, I think the name was, went out on scouting/sniping missions, they took two rifles apiece and no spotting scope (At least he never mentioned either.). One would take the 1903 w/Unertl scope and one would take the 1903A4. Both also carried M1 Carbines as well for "close in work."

My favorite tale involved the two of them setting up opposite a winding trail in some hilly/mountainous area of one of the islands he was on. Across from where they set up on the opposing ridge was a winding trail. At one end of it the japs had set up an encampment. But the trail wound around to the right away from them and they couldn't see far along it. Between two hills on that ridge, the trail opened up into a small open area just perfect for a sniper to light up a target. Visibility on that trail to the open area was pretty much non-existent according to Dad.

He and his buddy sat there most of the day and at the end, had "killed 26 japs." He described how, after the first one, "each successive jap wandering around the bend into the open area would find the bodies, stop for just a second, just perfect for another shot." Dad said sometimes they would have time to react and he would describe their reactions. He would get to giggling and laughing each time he told this story in absolute sheer delight.

One might wonder about the his joy in such an act, but I didn't, because I knew he had been on the USS West Virginia at Pearl Harbor and had seen most of the ship's company of Marines (his friends and buddies from boot camp) killed at the hands of the japs that day. He told me how, after swimming through burning oil to the dock and pulling out some Naval Officer, he stood there and cursed and cursed while shaking his fist at the departing jap planes. He said: "I'm coming to get you b@#*)(%ds and you are going to rue the day you did this."

He told me for the rest of the war, he called naval bombardments, air plane bombing missions, sniped, fired machined guns, tossed hand grenades, called fire from field artillery, shot with a Johnson rifle and shot with an M1 carbine as many japs as he could. His MOS in the service then (and I've seen his discharge papers) was, honest to God, "Intelligence Man." He turned an M1 carbine into a smooth bore on Iwo Jima from the number of rounds he fired through it. (Said that was a tough go.)

Near as I can tell, he delivered on his promise to those jap pilots. His last military act of WWII was to scout the jap defenses as the fleet pulled into the bay to surrender. He watched it come in, from Mt. Fuji.

[chill45100]

Thank you all for your input and sharing your tales. By putting such things into writing they have less of a chance of being lost.
The CMP rifles have been completely refurbished along with new Criterion barrels and new repro scopes. There is great hope that I can shoot one with some accuracy. At the very least there will be the pleasure of working up loads for them.
Thank you one and all for your service!